Russian 7.62 X 39 Ammo Will Disappear

Wisconsin --(Ammoland.com)- I am old enough to remember buying a used British Enfield military rifle in 1973 at K-Mart for $39.

It was my first center fire rifle and the surplus .303 British military ammo was everywhere and really cheap. So shooting the Enfield through the 1970s was very inexpensive.

Then the Russians invaded Afghanistan. The Brits had been in that area of the world for hundreds of years and the classic photo of an Afghan freedom fighter was a Pashtu, holding his Enfield, with a bandoleer of .303 ammo slung across his chest. The logistics types of the Western world started to buy up all the G.I. .303 ammo they could get their hands on to ship to the (alleged) good-guy Afghan freedom fighters. The cheap shooting ammo for my K-Mart special Enfield rifle forever dried up.

As we use to say in Mississippi “it’s fixin’ to happen again.”

The Russians will invade Ukraine. They are having major training exercises on the Ukraine-Russian border as you read this. Even though Russia has been run by religion-hating communists since 1917 there is still great respect for the Russian Orthodox Church. The Russians are waiting for Easter to get over with before they invade Ukraine.

Usually Orthodox Easter falls a week after the Western Christian Easter Sunday, but not this year. Last year, if Russia had invaded you would have had an extra week to get ready. This year Easter will be on 20 April 2014 for both the East and the West. Those military exercising Russians are only working out the kinks in their plans and adjusting for operational short-falls.

On or about the 21st of April 2014 the Godless (except for the Orthodox ones) past and present communist aggressors will turn their vehicles east and roll into Ukraine. The first Ukrainians they will run into will be Russian-speaking Ukrainians. These less than stellar Ukrainian citizens will be waving Russian flags and handing out free vodka to their perceived liberators. Sort of the way the Ukrainians did with the invading Germans in 1941.

Once the Russian army hordes drink the vodka and steal the flags they will begin suppressing the surprised Russian-speaking Ukrainians. I however will not be surprised. When this happens the rest of the former Soviet satellite countries will panic and realize they should have been spending their new found Euros on weapons and ammo resupply.

They will demand that the West ship them all the 7.62 X 39 ammo, NATO and the EU can find and send it for free, real fast. When this happens the logistics types (yet again) will start issuing purchase orders for every round of available 7.62 X 39 on the free market. This of course will cause the 7.62 X 39 to disappear.

For you non-gun people, 7.62 x 39 is the standard round of ammunition that the Russian AK 47 battle rifle fires. All the countries the old Soviet Union controlled were, and in most cases still are, armed with rifles in that round, but nobody has bought any new, fresh Russian designed rifle ammo in years.

After all, the Russians are the nice guys now, and even if they turn out not to be, the good old USA will always do the heavy lifting for NATO and the EU if a conflict should ever arise.

Black rifles are back on the shelves of gun stores in good supply and good prices again, but this will not last. I was approached for advice on whether to buy a Ruger Mini 14 in 223 Remington or a Ruger Mini 30 in the Russian 7.62 X39. The individual wants a magazine feed, self-loading rifle for social purposes in time of crisis, but also wants to be able to shoot a white tail deer with the Ruger.

I called Tim Sundles at Buffalo Bore Ammunition (buffalobore.com) and asked him about it. 223 Remington is a more accurate round and designed to shoot out to beyond 400 yards. The 7.62 x 39 is a 200 yard round and most military ammo is not really designed for hunting. After a long conversation with Tim and given the uncertainty of the future with Mr. Putin, I suggest you stick to the Mini 14 or any other black rifle in 223 Rem.

Buffalo Bore has two loads of 223 Rem that will take care of the deer hunting issue for your self-loading rifle; S223-77/ 20 which uses a 77 grain bullet moving out at 2800fps or the S223-69 which is loaded with a 69 grain bullet at 2900fps. Either of these rounds will stop your white tail or perhaps evil DNA that means to do you harm. Hard times are coming and so are the Russians. Stick to 223 Remington black rifles.

If you do not have one, get one and get your ammunition now, it will only be a short time before the next ammo crisis starts again. This time you may really need the stuff. Happy Easter, while it last.

Major Van Harl USAF Ret. / vanharl@aol.com

About Major Van Harl USAF Ret.:Major Van E. Harl USAF Ret., a career Police Officer in the U.S. Air Force was born in Burlington, Iowa, USA, in 1955. He was the Deputy Chief of police at two Air Force Bases and the Commander of Law Enforcement Operations at another. He is a graduate of the U.S. Army Infantry School. A retired Colorado Ranger and currently is an Auxiliary Police Officer with the Cudahy PD in Milwaukee County, WI. His efforts now are directed at church campus safely and security training. He believes “evil hates organization.” vanharl@aol.com

17 thoughts on “Russian 7.62 X 39 Ammo Will Disappear”

You are the reason panic starts, and ammo prices rise. I don’t even know where to start ridiculing this “article”…and considering you cannot even spell ‘disappear’ – I will make it simple and bullet point my arguments for you.

Who was president when the Soviets invaded Afghanistan? Answer: Not Obama. Close, but no cigar. 303 was fairly readily available through the early 21st century. It might have gone up in price, but it never “dried up” immediately following the invasion. Not to mention…

How out of mass production was good .303 when the Soviets invaded Afghanistan? Answer: Very. By decades. It was BOUND to dry up. 7.62×39 is still the most mass produced rifle round ON THE PLANET.

Who produces the most x39 on the market? Answer: Russia, and at a time, China. We are not buying in bulk from EITHER if the Russians invade Ukraine to feed other ex com-bloc nations. Short of economic blockade of their ammunition: It will still flow.

Lastly, what do you base any of this invasion nonsense on? Do you have a political science degree? World History? Did you attend a military college? Answer: NOPE. You are pulling this entire story out of your you know what. Ammoland really has dropped to a new low, and I am unsubbing. People who know nothing of world politics, let alone manufacture and supply of ammunition, should not write blogs on the internet.

Dumb article and goofy reasoning. BUT, Russia does manufacture some American sold brands of 5.56 and 7.62×39 ammo. And those like the travel to the space station as well as titanium sales to the U.S. could get real thin. I suspect the only reason their LEADER called our community organizer a bit ago was to tell our community organizer to get the Ukraine to give him an easement travel area and road from Russia to Crimea or else he would do that one way or another.

It’s no secret that the 7.62×39 is a short range round, but a lot of guys hunting deer with an SKS or AR 7.62×39 are doing just fine. My land is so densely wooded I can barely see past 100-150 yards, so long range is not an issue. At this range my AR 7.62×39 packs a pretty good punch for one shot kills! I hunt with quality soft points offered by Remington, Cor Bon, and others readily available on the shelf.
Steel cased ammo’s just icing on the cake for inexpensive plinking. The supply may or may not dry up. Doesn’t matter to me cause I don’t hunt with Tulammo.
Some of us don’t have the luxury of hunting deer on wide open terrain. If I did I’d be shooting .308 or 30 06 not .223.

No reason for not employing constructive criticism against his article. I have nothing to say about it other than I take his take with a grain of salt. He may turn out to be right on some accounts and just the same he may turn out to be dead-wrong. You obviously have read what he had to say, so take it on with your better judgment – don’t let it frustrate you if you do not agree with it. He wrote an article in anticipation of a potential 7.62×39 shortage. One should write an article to predict otherwise if they should feel so strongly. Like all milsurp ammo, all good things must come to an end.

It looks like Russia is poised to invade the rest of the Ukraine pretty soon but isn’t most of the 7.62x39mm made overseas? I know of a couple companies that sell it but most of them import it from Eastern Block countries…

Who writes this ignorant, inane garbage?! For starters, .223 is illegal in most, if not all states for deer hunting. It is too light a round for a humane, one shot kill on medium size game. Second, .223 is NOT a 400 yard round. It has a pathetic ballistic coefficient. At 400 yards the peawee bullets drop 3 feet and a 5 MPH cross wind will blow them a foot and a half off target. At 400 yards it is out of gas, hitting about as hard as a light handgun round. Aside from the fact the 7.62×39 is 25% more powerful than .223, both are 150 yard guns — at best. 7.62×39 produces about the same energy as a 30-30. It is not the best choice for deer hunting, but could squeek by as a brush gun adequate for targets out to around 50 yards or so. If you want a black gun that can double as a hunting rifle, give the light weight, girly rounds a pass and get something chambered in .308. While you lose some velocity in a semi auto with a shorter barrel, the .308 will still hit harder at 350 yards than a .223 does at the muzzle. Plus, with current prices, .223 costs as much to shoot as .308 anyhow. Save your spent brass and reload your .308s at less than .35 per round. There are plenty of choices in black guns chambered in .308, starting around $500 and, 25 round mags are plentiful. So, trade in your girly gun ARs and AKs and get yourself a real gun that is suitable for something other than plinking coffee cans. As far as the rest of this hysterical rant is concerned, it speeks for itself. Among other considerations, in the aftermath of the post Sandy Hook ammo shortages, 7.62×39 came back faster than any other cartridge and is the ONLY cartridge currently selling at pre Sandy Hook prices. Whatever other shortcomings Russians suffer from, they do some good work with small arms.

I can only find 8 states that don’t allow 223 besides shotgun onlys, some even allow it for elk. That being said I’m not a fan of it for deer. I always inform those considering it of other options. But if they insist, I make it clear that bullet type, shot placement, and range are even more critical. If you double lung it with an expanding bullet it will still run at least a 100yd. A drt round may turn the vitals to mush, but hit shoulder and you likely won’t reach them. Many people do use it quite effectively though.

$500 .308 ar? $750 is bottom end, and reliablity on .308 AR in general is not stellar, let alone cheapies. Have you ever carried one with a scope all day in the woods? They are a couple pounds heavier than std length. There are many better options for an AR deer rifle. .300aac, 6.8spc, 6.5grendel, .450bm, .458socom, and .50beuwolf to name a few. The .300aac is probably the best choice. It utilizes 223 brass and .308 bullets, it mimics 7.62×39 ballistics. The only difference in the rifle is the barrel. This means it’s also the best choice to swap uppers between it for deer and 223 for anything smaller and plinking.

Ask a marine, they’ll tell you 5.56 is a 500yd rd, from a 20″. 7.62×39 is a 300yd, but this is for bipeds, 200yds for deer. I use 7.62×39 125gr sp silver bear with great effect past a 100yds. Considering most deer are taken inside 200, a .308win is an overkill. Not only a waste of powder, but it unnecessarily abuses the rifle, optic, and shoulder. The extra weight increases fatigue, and worsens balance/handling lessening hit probability in the field.

As for the issue of ammo supply… When I recommend a surplus caliber I tell the person to get as much as they need for the life of the gun. If it is surplus it is obsolete, and as such not being produced so it will run out. I seen it with 303, 8mm, and to a degree 7.62nato. The majority of 7.62×39 however is new civilian production. This can be shut off over night by trade restrictions. The other issue is components, military contracts get filled first. If you looked for 7.62×39 from 03 to 05 it was gone for that very reason. As others said the caliber is not used by many nations anymore. Where they do, they tend to not be industrialized and when they become a hot zone, require rapid delivery from all sources, as the major alluded.

Commentors on this board seem to be missing the point. We don’t know what our own leaders/voters will do in the future, let alone those of other nations. The only thing in our own control is our own personal inventory and plan for those droughts that occasionally do come…and a plan B,C, & D. A prepared plan brings peace of mind. So rather than worrying and being angry & emotional about things out of our sphere of influence you can focus on more important things…like preventing problems with informed voting. If everyone would live within their means, and without debt, panics wouldn’t pose problems but rather opportunities.

If you want to talk about powerful and accurate rounds for hunting, don’t forget the 7.62 x54r round. Not a .308, but you can get a rifle for $100, the ammo for $.18-.21 a round, how can you lose?
Semi-auto rifles can be had $500 or so, and cans of ammo can be had cheaply. Buy now, before the round is stopped from being imported like the 7.62 x 25 round.

It is sad that so many comments sections across the internet are filled with such acerbic and confrontational comments. So often, folks seem to start out with “what a moron…blah blah blah”. I think we need to remember Teddy Roosevelt who said Americans should “talk (or walk) softly and carry a big stick. Moving on.. here’s my two cents. First of all, the primary Russian caliber is no longer 7.62x39mm. It is 5.45×39.5mm. A lot of Americans seem to think it is still 7.62x39mm. So even for the Russians, it is a surplus and export cartridge primarily as they are no longer cranking out quantities of it as they used to because they have largely retooled for 5.45×39.5mm Who is their biggest export customer? Why the USA of course – by a long shot. If things continue to go south between our nations does it really take a rocket scientist to figure out that supplies of CHEAP 7.62x39mm are going to dry up? Notice, I didn’t say there’d be no ammo – I just said it will definitely not be cheap like it has been. And as a point of fact that trend has been in motion for 5-10 years now. Why even as few as 8-10 years ago you could get a case of 7.62x39mm for less than a hundred bucks! So all the author is really saying is that trends are going to continue. 7.62x39mm is no longer the deep discount bargain undercutting the price of 5.56mm any more. That is likely true whether war comes to Europe or not. If war does come to Europe, that trend will just move faster. That’s all.